John Roberts Makes His Career Move
For John Roberts, it is Palm Sunday.
Out of relief and gratitude for his having saved Obamacare, he is being compared to John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Liberal commentators are burbling that his act of statesmanship has shown us the way to the sunny uplands of a new consensus.
If only Republicans will follow Roberts' bold and brave example, and agree to new revenues, the dark days of partisan acrimony and tea party intransigence could be behind us.
Yet imagine if Justice Stephen Breyer had crossed over from the liberal bench to join Antonin Scalia, Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy in striking down Obamacare. Those hailing John Roberts for his independence would be giving Breyer a public caning for desertion of principle.
Why did Roberts do it? Why did this respected conservative uphold what still seems to be a dictatorial seizure of power—to order every citizen to buy health insurance or be punished and fined?
Congress can do this, wrote Roberts, because even if President Obama and his solicitor general insist the fine is not a tax, we can call it a tax:
"If a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. ... If the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress's constitutional power to tax."
Roberts is saying that if Congress, to stimulate the economy, orders every middle-class American to buy a new car or face a $5,000 fine, such a mandate is within its power.
Now, Congress can indeed offer tax credits for buying a new car. But if a man would prefer to bank his money and not buy a new car, can Congress order him to buy one—and fine him if he refuses?
Roberts has just said that Congress has that power.
Clearly, the chief justice was searching for a way not to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. But to do so, he had to go through the tortured reasoning of redefining as a tax what its author and its chief advocates have repeatedly insisted is not a tax.
Why did he do it? One reason Roberts gives is his innate conservatism.
As he wrote in his opinion:
"We (the Court) possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our nation's elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."
This is a sentiment many of us seek in a jurist in a republic: a disposition to defer to the elected branches to set policy and make law. But Roberts here raises a grave question—about himself.
While it is not the job of the Supreme Court "to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices," it is the job of the Supreme Court to pass on the constitutionality of laws.
Did Roberts look at that individual mandate and conclude that it passed the constitutionality test? Or did he first decide that he did not want to be the chief justice responsible for destroying the altarpiece of the Obama presidency and sinking that presidency—and then go searching for a rationale to do what he had already decided to do?
Here we enter the area of surmise.
In the view of this writer, Roberts desperately does not want to seen by history as merely a competent but colorless member of the conservative bloc on the Supreme Court, another reliable vote in the Scalia camp. He does not want Anthony Kennedy, the swing justice, to be making history, while he is seen as a predictable conservative vote.
John Roberts aspires to be a man of history, to have this court known to historians as "the Roberts Court." And if there is to be a decisive vote in future great decisions, he wants that vote to be his.
He wants to be seen among the cognitive elite, in this capital city that voted 93-7 for Obama, as a large and independent thinker. And with this decision on Obamacare, for which he will be remembered, he has taken a great leap forward to establishing that new identity.
John Roberts likely has ahead of him a quarter of a century as chief justice. If he wants to be written of as another John Marshall or Oliver Wendell Holmes, and not Roger Taney, he must pay the price the city demands. If he does not wish to be remembered as a tea party justice, he must deliver the goods. And John Roberts just did.
Already they are saying of him that John Roberts has grown.
Liberals will never again see him in the same light. Nor will his old comrades. To attain the first, John Roberts is willing to accept the second. He has made his decision. John Roberts is moving on up.
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If any fellow commenters here can confirm or explain this:
Is Obama's, Reid's, and Pelosi's ACA actually "un-Constitutional"? Or is it just partisan talk?
Is it unconstitutional? Read Roberts' own decision. He clearly explains why the individual mandate cannot be justified on the basis of the Commerce Clause. And yet that is the justification that the ACA uses.
Roberts didn't declare the ACA as written constitutional, because even he admitted that he could not. Instead, he rewrote the legislation, as if he were not simply a justice of the Supreme Court but a majority of both houses of Congress.
That isn't deference to Congress; it's saying that he knows better than Congress what Congress intended. Deference to Congress would have been to follow the logic of his own opinion, strike down the individual mandate as an unconstitutional application of the Commerce Clause, and allow the elected representatives of the American people to try to fix the mess they have made.
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS AND THE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT: BOTH ANATHEMA TO THE CONSTITUTION
“In his White House memoir, ‘Courage and Consequence,’ Karl Rove recalls being the lone non-lawyer among the group of George W. Bush aides who initially interviewed John Roberts for the Supreme Court in 2005. Rove asked Roberts to go back in history to name the justice whom he most revered. Roberts’ answer, Robert Jackson, intrigued and reassured Rove. When appointed in 1941, Jackson was serving as Franklin Roosevelt’s attorney general and had been expected to be a pro-New Deal rubber-stamp on the court. But, as Rove put it, Jackson ‘instead demonstrated a fidelity to the Constitution that Roberts admired.’” So writes Walter Shapiro @ http://news.yahoo.com/john-roberts-saves-obamacare--how-does-george-w--bush-feel-right-now-.html
Jackson, it must be said, was mostly a rubber stamp for the New Deal. He was the author of the amazing Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) http://laws.findlaw.com/us/317/111html, holding that home grown wheat that is all consumed on the farm is interstate commerce because it affects interstate commerce. For more on that monstrosity, see http://douglassbartley.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/federal-commerce-power-leviathans-dragnet/
In the ObamaCare case, writing for the majority, Roberts perhaps emulating his hero, held (from the syllabus pp. 3-4):
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III-C, concluding that the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress's power under the Taxing Clause.
“It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government's alternative argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress's power to ‘lay and collect Taxes.’ Art. I, §8, cl. 1 [The General Welfare Clause]. In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because ‘every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,’ Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is ‘fairly possible’ to interpret the mandate as imposing such a tax, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62. Pp. 31-32. 4. Pp. 33- 44 @ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/29/us/29healthcare-scotus-docs.html
Despite Roberts embrace of the “general welfare’ clause as a source of unlimited taxing power, the Founders regarded the clause not as a federal power but as a restraint on federal power. As Jefferson said and Madison agreed:
“[To construe the clause as providing a] distinct and independent power to do any act [congress] might please for the good of the Union . . . would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States . . . . Certainly no such universal power was intended to be given them. [The clause] was intended to lace [Congress] up strictly within the enumerated powers, and . . . without which, as means, those powers could not be carried into effect. (Emphasis added.)”
For more, please see THE GENERAL WELFARE CLAUSE: “How a Constitutional Restraint Was Transformed Into a Constitutional Power @ http://wp.me/sD41z-7.
Thank you for your response Mr. Richert.
A Supreme Court justice rewriting a law and trying to second-guess the intentions of those who passed the law - it sounds unprecedented. And radical.
Reading a little further on this matter - the US Commerce Clause can only regulate an activity, not a non-activity, as John Roberts himself argued. Yet, the chief justice also argues that the non-activity of not buying insurance is an activity that can be taxed.
It's so perplexing, that the only thing that explains his decision is what Mr. Buchanan has suggested - the desire to make history.
Another BZ to Sandy Faulkner! All I can think of right now is John Roberts yelling out, "Weezy!"
I guess I can add one more public Catholic to be ashamed of to the list. Great. And it was already a very long list.
"I guess I can add one more public Catholic to be ashamed of to the list. Great. And it was already a very long list."
Vince, that was one of my first thoughts, as well. We are certainly at a low ebb.
If "Catholic" means following both the teaching and example of the "conciliar" popes and "national bishops' conferences," Justice Roberts is very Catholic, indeed. He is simply taking steps to bring into being that order of things advocated by his religious leadership.
I fear Father Steven has fallen prey to the temptation that so often afflicts those who regard their religious affiliation as being akin to being a member of a political party or a supporter of a sports team. Rather than being interested in the truth of a matter, such people are more interested in scoring points by any available means.
Father Steven undoubtedly knows that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, while it offered guarded support for the idea of "healthcare reform," opposed ObamaCare, so it can hardly be said to be something "advocated by [Roberts'] religious leadership."
Moreover, Father Steven belongs to that particular strain of Orthodox converts who seem unable, in most circumstances, to utter the words "Roman Catholic" without including "legalism" in the same sentence. I wish, though, that Chief Justice Roberts had been afflicted by a touch of legalism in this case. If he had, he would have joined Justices Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy in striking down at least the individual mandate, since, as Roberts' own opinion clearly shows, the mandate cannot be justified on the basis of the Commerce Clause, as the legislation claims.
Mr. Richert: What the legislation claims as a constitutional basis is irrelevant. The court can look at the substance of the legislation and conclude it was a tax. But, as I said above, it was not rightly upheld as a tax, because the general welfare clause is not a general power to tax for any purpose--only for constitutionally-enumerated purposes. Health care is not in the enumeration. Neither was Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, to mention a few extra-constitutional pieces of legislation. Right?
Mr. Richert,
Could you explain more about the episcopacy's opposition to Obamacare (or point me to somewhere that you have likely already explained this). I ask out of earnest curiosity. I have always had the impression that the majority of the bishops are ready to sign up for any and every liberal cause from the welfare state and unmitigated immigration to taxing the tuccus off the rich and setting up universal government run education and health care. I have had the impression, right or wrong, that if it weren't for the sticky issue of abortion the bishops would almost command us laymen to vote Democrat. (Honorable exceptions, of course, noted)
Was their opposition to Obamacare based solely on its obvious tilt towards abortion? If it weren't for abortion, does it seem likely that they would have supported it? Even with abortion aside, how can the doctrine of subsidiarity reside alongside any support of government owned and mandated healthcare, be it for bishop or for Supreme Court Justice?
Having not had the pleasure of meeting Fr. Steven I make no claim to speak on his behalf. But, for myself, I have found this is one of the most frustrating things to cope with - Church leaders who refuse to make a stand when it comes to matters within their competency (e.g. denying pro-abortion politicians Communion, putting the kibosh on Catholic religious women who publicly deny Church teaching, reigning in "Catholic" universities . . .etc.) but jumping up and down when it comes to matters that are beyond their competency and for which they always seem to be jumping on the wrong side (e.g. whether the death penalty is necessary anymore or whether or not we should allow illegal aliens the same rights as citizens . . . etc.). Walking the line between realistically critical and cynically bitter has been a hard one for me.
As an aside, I confess, I couldn't find it in myself to fast, pray, and sacrifice so that Wiccans and Scientologists can enjoy the same rights to "religious liberty" as the Church, but if the bishops had called me to spend 14 days fasting, praying, and sacrificing for the Church Herself that would have been a different matter. I'm not trying to justify my own self-interested sloth; just trying to highlight what seems to me to be very ineffective leadership on the bishops' part, even amidst the crisis they're presumably actually paying attention to.
Concerning Scott Richert's comments in response to my post:
1st Paragraph: There is nothing in my brief post which supports the idea that I am "not interested in the truth" - a very serious charge, by the way, for one gentleman to level at another - and only wish to "score points," which are simply ad hominem remarks that I am, frankly, embarrassed about for *Chronicles'* sake. I am always encouraging people to subscribe to the magazine and to support the Rockford Institute, and when I see sub-par thinking like this, it is disappointing. As for "cheering for my team" (i.e., the Orthodox) and against Mr. Richert's "team," this is also unsupported by any evidence in my post, since I said nothing about the Orthodox leadership whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the Orthodox episcopacy in this country is completely missing in action on this issue, as well as many others on which they should be taking a stand. I did not comment on this, because I was responding to Vince Cornell's and Mickey's comments immediately prior to my post, which concerned the Roman Catholic angle. If non-Catholics are not allowed to comment on this blog on the Roman Catholic Church's role in the political and moral life of our country (unless, I suppose, they say only positive things), just let me know and I shall henceforth be silent on this subject. Perhaps this restriction should be posted for all to see, so that no one in future repeats my transgression.
2nd Paragraph: What I meant by that which is advocated by the Roman Catholic leadership in this country is not simply "Obamacare," which, by the way, they do not oppose in principle, because socialized medicine is precisely one of the "rights" which ineluctably follow from the principles enunciated by their chief in *Veritas in Caritate*; they only object to the bits about abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. What I was referring to was the entire program of political and economic leftism, which - apart from "pro-life" issues - the RC leadership in the US has been supporting since the New Deal. Mr. Richert's fellow Roman Catholic, Chilton Williamson, to his credit, stated as much in an excellent piece in the print *Chronicles* not long ago, an article which, perhaps, Mr. Richert did not have the time to read, which is a pity, since he could have learned something from it. I remember very well standing by helplessly and watching the happy and secure world of my south Louisiana childhood being destroyed by the "civil rights" movement, and hearing the grownups talking about the RC bishops in Southern dioceses who were excommunicating entire families of worthy and upright Catholics for the "sin" of opposing enforced racial integration, a "sin" which is nowhere declared such by any divine or ecclesiastical law. Their like-minded colleague, Archbishop Deardon of Detroit, was at the same time doing everything he could to help destroy HIS OWN white ethnic Catholic communities in Detroit and hand over the city - including consecrated Catholic churches - to Holy Roller Negroes, in service to the sacred cause of "racial equality." I suppose he wanted to be fair and not "prejudiced" like those bums who only cheer for their own team. The list could go on, but it is dreary, and we don't have the space.
3rd Paragraph - I said nothing whatsoever about Roman Catholicism being legalistic in this post or, as far as I know, in anything I have written in correspondence with *Chronicles* in print or on the website. I simply don't know where Mr. Richert found the ammunition for this particular ad hominem. Perhaps he is confusing me with someone else. As a matter of fact, in my day to day dealings with Orthodox and "angry ex-Catholics" (a tiresome lot!) who are still telling horror stories about the bogeyman of "legalistic" Catholicism, I always take pains to point out that they are shadowboxing, since the kind of Catholicism they are caricaturing was intentionally and systematically destroyed years ago by the papal organization itself, in favor of today's Catholic Lite.
Fr. Steven mistakes disagreement for censorship. No one told him he isn't allowed to criticize the Catholic hierarchy. Apparently Fr. Steven thinks what he should be allowed to do is criticize the Catholic hierarchy without any disagreement.
Also, Fr. Steven's original post was illogical. If Roberts' Catholicism is to blame for his opinion, then shouldn't the Catholicism of Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy be credited for their dissent? The reality, of course, is that Catholicism had nothing to do with any of the opinions.
Thank you, Tom, for that clarification. Just wanted to make sure. Disagreement is, of course, welcome; otherwise, how could we enjoy - and, more importantly, learn from - an argument? The remark about censorship was a tease; in fact, you filioquists who run the show over there at the Rockford Institute have tolerated my lurking about at the margins with right good grace most of the time.
Go back and read my first, short post carefully. There was an important conditional clause. IF being Catholic means following the lead of the current Vatican-connected hierarchy, including the present pope, THEN Roberts's actions are "Catholic." I did not state that Roberts's betrayal was dictated by Catholicism per se, which demonstrably it was not. The Gramscian march through the institutions is more or less complete within the historical, publicly recognized RC structures - as well as, for that matter, within the historical Orthodox Patriarchates and Synods - and often (though - so far - not always) following the lead of the Revolution's appointed servants within these structures will result in working against the Faith itself. That was my point.
I admit that his reality creates an exquisitely painful situation for conscience and raises important questions of ecclesiology, but there it is. God save us.
Father Steven,
"I remember very well standing by helplessly and watching the happy and secure world of my south Louisiana childhood being destroyed by the "civil rights" movement"....
This is the same experience I had up here in Chicago. Chicago was so important to the civil rights gang we were favored with a visit/siege by the King himself, when he occupied for awhile a house on the South Side to make sure that the whites who protested would be drowned out and vilified for disrespecting the deity. As I uncomprehendingly watched events unfold – hadn't we always been nice to the colored people? My parents certainly were, and taught me accordingly (I was 16 at the time) – both here and down south, I never had an inkling of the vast left wing conspiracy backing the revolutionaries. And a thing I never could understand was how Southerners, not known for running from a fight, could be so quickly and utterly defeated in a matter so obviously vital to them. (To all whites, of course.) Up here, in the Land o' Lincoln and Addled Stevenson, the air of moral superiority exhaled by the integrationists was so thick and noxious that resistance to the onslaught never had a chance. Now, thanks to hearing of this excommunication of entire families, the pieces of the Southern puzzle fall into place.
Fear not, I shall not become one of those "angry ex-Catholics" who tire you. I have had enough adventure for two or three lives and have no stomach for leaps into another faith now. But as I take my pew in my grandfather's parish church, where the clergy in their love of the faithful removed the carved marble communion rail my grandparents, father, aunts and uncles knelt at – oddly enough, as in forced integration, in the name of "breaking down barriers" – I must say, it will be harder now to take their sermons seriously.
Correction to last sentence in my last post: "this" not "his" reality.
Fr. Stevens, if I may, I cannot speak for Dr. Richert or Mr. Piatak, but I do know that they - and Dr. Richert in particular - are, for various reasons, very hesitant to openly criticize or to stand by silently when it comes to criticism of the Catholic hierarchy. Indeed, to criticize the Church hierarchy amounts in large extent to criticism of the Church itself, though Luther was not yet a "Lutheran" when he published his 95 Theses and was not excommunicated for doing so.
For the reasons that you cite, I happen to be on the side of a band of Catholics who is a bit less wary of such criticism, although I do think that certain clergy and faithful go too far. (It would suffice, for example, to cite the outrageous pronunciations in question alongside a traditional source of Church doctrine. That would speak for itself, without delving into commentaries on "infection with the spirit of modernism!" that are true but imprudent, because easily caricatured. Our Lord prohibited us from actively seeking martyrdom long ago.)
The problem began a long time ago, probably in 1903, when Leo XIII tried to pry some of the Church's most loyal followers away from one of the causes they held most dear and appear acceptable to the trendsetters. His hope was doubtless that he would find an ally in the French Republican government against the Italian king keeping him hostage and surrounded by an apparatus that wanted his destruction. Alas, two years later the republicans destroyed the Concordat in France, and when help did come in 1921 it was not from France but from within Italy itself. Sadly, the stage was set for one straight-line descent downwards into trend-following.
All the same, I did not, do not and will not choose to become Orthodox, for a variety of reasons. (I didn't know it at the time, but much of it had to do with the particularities of the Catholic devotion to Our Lady.) Yet the 20th century Orthodox writer who reminded us that the divide between good and evil lies within the human heart had more than enough reason, and if we remember that the Church is a divine institution directed by men and destined to endure so long as men ensure, we will accept that ecclesiastics can do many terrible things.
Mr. Moses - Thank you for a thoughtful rejoinder. To clarify: I did not write my first post to convert any Catholics to Orthodoxy, though if anyone is interested I shall be happy to talk to him another time one to one, and not on the *Chronicles* website. I wrote to make this point: To understand our situation accurately, it is essential to realize that the Revolution (or the Conspiracy or the Bad Guys or the NWO or the political elites or whatever you want to call them) has now placed its men at the top of all the important ecclesiastical institutions East and West. It's no use denying it. It is the only starting point for analysis which enables one to make sense of the overall direction of their actions. A Pope Benedict may throw a bone to traditionalists in the form of a few bells and smells at Mass and some Latin; a Patriarch Kyrill may canonize the New Martyrs slaughtered by the same organization for which he still works (remember that verse in which Our Lord derides the Pharisees for building the tombs for the prophets their fathers murdered?); but they ARE kept men. They work for the Other Side. How that affects the validity of their orders or the legitimacy of their authority is a theological question for discussion in a venue other than this forum.
Mr. Jacobi - To cheer you up, I'd like to tell a happy story about MLK Jr. - the day my great-uncle told him to leave town, and he left. It is good to remember victories sometimes instead of forever mourning defeats. My paternal grandmother's brother, Willis Butler M.D., was coroner of Caddo Parish, Louisiana (wherein lies the glorious metropolis of Shreveport) for 48 years, being elected to twelve consecutive terms between the years 1912 and 1960. Some time in the late '50's, MLK's handlers were bringing their golden boy and their hire-a-mob to north Louisiana to whip the natives into shape. Since my great-uncle was known as the liberal and all-around Negro-lover in the Shreveport government, the city fathers thought that he would be the man most likely to think of the nicest way to tell the good "Doctor" King to mind his own business. ( I do not know for a fact, but most probably Uncle Willis was driven to the train station and accompanied to the platform by Caesar, his chauffeur, general factotum, and inseparable companion of many years.) Well, Uncle Willis meets the man himself right as he's getting off the train, and he says, "Dr. King, white folks and colored folks in Shreveport get along just fine, and we want to keep it that way. I strongly suggest that you get back on this train and keep going," or words to that effect. I don't know why this entreaty had an effect on King, but it did. He actually got back on the train and left. Maybe he was just late for Fort Worth or somewhere else more important anyway, or maybe the fact that the city sent the coroner to warn him off had a chilling effect on his zeal. At any rate, it was a little victory, and it is still good to tell of it.
I remember Caesar sitting in my mother's kitchen when I was a child, wearing his uniform and politely balancing his chauffeur's cap on his knee while my mother served him a cup of coffee during a visit from our uncle. He asked me if I had ever attended the Sugar Bowl. A vanished world.
I did not write my first post to convert any Catholics to Orthodoxy
I did not believe you did. However, there are quite a few people who, disgusted with the banality in one quarter, are inclined to romanticizing another. While the romantic reactive instinct draws from a very human search for truth and beauty, it is not by itself a solid reason to consider any sort of drastic life change.
Likewise, my touching on the validity and necessity of apostolic orders was in anticipation of certain types who occasionally pollute this forum with useless proclamations to the effect that "Catholicism is liberalism" sometimes with an Evangelical agenda but more often with some sort of 300/neo-Pagan/Nouvelle Droite agenda.
If. Fr. Steven were consistent in his disdain for "conciliar" Catholicism, he would not protest against alleged censorship, but welcome it. After all, error has no rights, and, under that logic, no one should be free to spread religious errors, including attacks on the Vicar of Christ.
As for me, I reject the notion that there is such a thing as "conciliar" Catholicism. There is simply the Catholic Church. Certainly, that is what Benedict XVI believes and why he has criticized using a "hermeneutic of rupture" to interpret the Second Vatican Council. The problems that have beset the Church in the West since Vatican II are well known and I don't mean to minimize them, but I have had no difficulty finding good parishes and good priests throughout my adult life, and the Barque of Peter has successfully resisted the push to turn the Catholic Church into a replica of the more liberal forms of Protestantism.
Of course there are statements by the Catholic hierarchy on prudential matters with which I have disagreed, but I think those outside Catholicism overestimate the impact of the hierarchy's political pronouncements on the faithful. The only issue that might be considered political that I have regularly heard addressed at Sunday Mass is abortion, and even sermons about abortion are rare.
The notion that the Pope is now a "kept man" who "works for the Other Side" is, simply, false. As an initial matter, the "conciliar" Popes have set fine examples of personal holiness, and two have been beatified. Some may think personal piety irrelevant, but I do not.
Setting personal piety aside, two of the greatest manifestations of leftism in my adult lifetime have been Soviet Communism and the push to overthrow Christian sexual morality. There is no doubt where the Papacy has stood on those issues. John Paul II was one of the most formidable opponents Soviet Communism ever had. He helped inspire Solidarity and the general resistance to Soviet Communism and even inspired martyrs, such as Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko. He did all he could to encourage the Church under Communism, and bestowed numerous honors on those who had suffered under Communism, giving the red hat to those who were living (such as Jan Chrysostom Korec) and raising to the altars those who had died under Communism (such as Cardinal Stepinac). Both John Paul II and his prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, were vigorous in condemning the Marxist element in liberation theology. We know that the Communists hated John Paul II, because they tried to kill him.
Paul VI condemned artificial contraception, the wellspring of the sexual revolution, in Humanae Vitae, and the Papacy has stood firm against the sexual revolution, reiterating the teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts and the indissolubility of marriage. The "conciliar" Popes have also reaffirmed the value of clerical celibacy, the target of unending hostility by the sexual revolutionaries, since its very existence is an affront to all they believe, and John Paul II clearly and unequivocally reaffirmed Church teaching regarding the ordination of women to the priesthood. The Papacy has also been the foremost opponent of abortion in the world. "The Other Side" has not been pleased by these positions, which is a major reason that the Catholic Church receives such negative press in most of the West. It is true that many bishops have been quite timid about following the example of the Popes in these areas, but "The Other Side" realizes the importance of the teaching, which is why it is not content with silence from timid clerics, but demands instead a change in Church teaching. And maybe the timidity is starting to fade, as shown by the bishops' strong opposition to the HHS mandate. That opposition may, of course, fade, but it would not even have been predicted not long ago.
Re censorship: I did not say I was against it. I just wanted to know the rules here.
Re this Pollyanna vision of the current state of the RC organization: I guess everyone needs some kind of illusion to keep him going nowadays. Good luck.
Father Steven,
Wonderful story. Wish I could have met Uncle Willis. Some hollywood type would probably cast him as one of those character actors like Wilfred Brimely or another one whose name escapes who specialize in making Southerners seem all dark and gothic. I like to think it was his strength of character and the honest persuasiveness of his argument that did the trick, but I admit that the fact that he was the coroner is a delicious coincidence.